Classical Conditioning Flashcards
What is classical conditioning? (and who discovered it)
This is the simplest form of associative learning (conditioning).
It was discovered by Pavlov.
What is the process of classical conditioning?
Unconditioned (not learned) stimulus (UCS) and a neutral stimulus (NS) are repeatedly paired. The NS eventually produces the same response as the UNS produced.
What is extinction?
When the conditioned stimulus (CS) no longer produces conditioned response (CR). When a CS is experienced without the UNS over a period of time, the CR ceases to exist.
What is stimulus recovery?
Stimulus revovery is when the Conditioned Response reappears.
Extinct responses reappear even without new pairings with the UNS (but are generally weaker than the original ones).
For example, if you are conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell (because you are then given food) but you go through a period of being given food without the bell, and one day, in the future, you may slightly salivate when you hear a bell because you haven’t completely unlearned the CR.
What is stimulus generalisation?
Sometimes we become conditioned to respond to one simulus but exhibit the same response to a similar stimuli.
For example, with our watergun experiment, where the participant was squirted on the word “can” (and then learned to flinch as soon as the word was said) - they also flinched when similar words were said, like “man” or “pan”.
What is a strength of classical conditioning? (hint: salivate, bell + CA slightly wrong i.e. occurring close together is not essential)
Classical conditioning is supported by countless animal and human studies.
Pavlov (1927) showed how dogs could associate a sound with food, causing them to salivate at hearing a noise.
CA: However, some of Pavlov’s details of clasical conditioning are open to question. For example, he believed that the essential factor linking the NS and the UNS was contiguity (the two stimuli occuring close together in time).
But Rescorla (1968) found evidence that contiguity is in fact less important than contingency (the extent to which the NS reliably predicts the NCS).
What is a weakness of classical conditioning? (hint: incomplete explanation, can only explain acquisition of simple behaviours)
Classical conditioning is an incomplete explanation for learning.
Classical conditioning only explains the acquisition of simple reflex responses (e.g. salivation, anxiety, sexual arousal). But it cannot explain more complex chains of learned behaviour.
For example, classical conditioning can explain how we can come to fear dogs but not the maintenance of this fear over time, or how we can learn to avoid them.
What is an application of classical conditioning? (hint: aversion therapy)
Classical conditioning is the basis of aversion therapy.
For example, aversion therapy is used to treat people who have an unwanted behaviour, such as experiencing sexual arousal to a photograph of a young child.
A painful electric shock (UCS) paired with a photograph (NS) leads to a UCR of discomfort. The individual the associates the photo with the discomfort.
(links to the ethical issue of aversion therapy for homosexuality)
